post from eil sent to drG for posting

In response to "Plato says No Writing!":

I wholeheartedly agree ... Though we have many websites for social
interaction there is always a viscerality missing somewhere ... the
computer universe is one of only one sense (sight), maybe sound if we wire
it up right, but no smell , no touch (other than the keyboard), definitely
no shared taste experiences (I'm sure everyone's computer had a different
flavor) ... and none of the sensory deprivation even touches (no pun
intended) on the fact that all social websites have sort of a central meme
to why people choose them. This site, we're all on because of a class we
share (no random people as far as I know) ... so the pool of possible
correspondence is limited, the people you might meet here are of a
specific subset of society ... where's the fun in that ... If you're at a
coffee shop or a restaurant or a bar you have random input that can
immediately derail (or resuscitate) a conversation. That can't happen in a
blog ...

In Response to "Pleasure":
I'm of the mind, on pleasure vs hardship, that we almost always take the
easiest path ... even if it appears hard to our peers. If, as DR. G said
above, we wait until "clarity that is unmistakable and then the path is
easy " that is the easiest decision in the world to make. If we make a
decision before we can talk ourselves out of it that's the easiest way to
our goal, if we end up starving in a gutter somewhere it's because we took
the easy way out and didn't get a job, if we stay at a dead end job for
decades because we're to lazy to improve our lot in life we are again
taking the easiest way out.

I think we have a tendency to try to minimize our investment; in case
we're wrong, in case it doesn't go right, in case we get shot down by life
... so that we have a fall back position of "this happened to me" rather
than "I did this".

Those of us who go to college are avoiding lots of hardships that result
from being uneducated; getting some job we don't like, or having a dead
end job in the future, avoiding military service, or just getting away
from home.

The differences are in the people making the choices ... some people are
just wired different ... one person finds it easy to be a mechanic for 40
years, another enjoys school and stays in university until it kicks them
out.
Our personal variability correlates to Bacon's Idols (idylls? ) Our
cultural, emotional, familial, and dialectic differences are what describe
our paths through life ... I think that when someone refers to "finding
their niche", "being in the groove" , or "answering their calling" they're
just taking the easiest path (as described by their own internal wiring)
... We just have to pretend it's hard to make the rest of the world value
our dedication.

--
Eli Seifert